The history of crystal devices traces back to France in 1880 when the Curie brothers discovered the piezo-electric effect that crystals exhibit. Because of its highly reliable and stable property, crystals have been used for over a century to stabilize the frequency of an oscillation circuit. Natural quartz is abundant in nature, but contains impurities, cracks, and size variations. Thus, synthetic quartz is grown and used since quality can be controlled. Epson has multiple locations to grow synthetic quartz crystal for use in its timing and sensor devices.